Hi there. The title is (sort of) explanatory, but still needs some additional explanation. What happens if an item is found, but there are no dice left to set durability (let's presume solo game for simplicity) ? Asking mainly about the food - is it possible to get, let's say, 4 food cards, and use them immediately, if we have no dice left to put on the stack ? And, if we cannot keep such item as an item, can we keep the card, and put a die on it later when we have a free die ?
Taking your example of playing solo (4 item slots w/ 4 cards per item stack) and drawing 4 food cards, I believe you have three options: -Lose one whole item, discarding all of the cards in that item, and make a new item consisting of the 4 food, which will then have a die of value 4 since the food cards share keywords. -Add the food to already created item stacks, if there is room. So if one of your items consisted of only a single item, say the Bow, then you could add up to 3 food to that item. Since no keywords are shared, the die value wouldn't change, but you could later use this item in order to eat some of the food, if you have enough uses left on the bow (or can find other ways to add uses). -Return all of the food uneaten.
Note: you *cannot* remove parts of an item stack, so if you have the Bow, Sword, Bolas, and Raft in one stack, you cannot just remove the raft and replace it with one food. You would have to lose the whole item stack or keep the whole item stack.
As far as game strategy goes:
I generally try to keep an item slot reserved for food, especially when going hunting. The Basket card (may not be the exact name) is really nice for a food item stack allowing you to add 3 more cards to the stack and it shares a keyword with food, so you as an item stack it can hold 5 pieces of food + has room for one more item, such as something you find that says "does not reduce the value of the stack when used".
Otherwise, if you search around here and BGG you can probably find some house rules where people allow food to be eaten immediately in such a situation you describe or others way to manage food. However the rules as written can appear a bit harsh, if you don't plan for it. Maxing out your items comes with some risk!
Thanks for the quick response Ploktor, much appreciated OK, then I should admit I have been cheating a bit (: The 'note' is actually in the rules, so no argue about that. As of the actual question, I had a thought about it after a long 'opening' solo session, and when I resume the save, I will keep to the 'harsh' rules ;) P.S. offtopic - well, a coop game should be harsh, otherwise it wouldn't be that much interesting and challenging (:
I had a really good hunting item, which I used for some time to get a lot of food. As I nearly had no place after that I just discarded that hunting item (had one pip only left anyway) and used that space to store the food from the last hunt.
VG: 
PoC: 
009: